


crawford

by Jackaxed



Category: Original Work
Genre: beating up kids, coughing up blood, fat cops, incredibly mild violence, just another normal day of being a demon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:16:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3668832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackaxed/pseuds/Jackaxed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is an old work of mine from the 2013-2014 era</p><p>i'm sort of proud of it, as it is the longest work i've written thus far</p>
            </blockquote>





	crawford

crawford

i wake up pissed off, like always. there is always this silent rage bubbling inside me, building up behind my temple and threatening to push its way out. why? because life isn’t fair. i’m not being some moody spoiled teenager when i say this. i have a damn good right to be unhappy with my life. i am one of those kids who relies on the school cafeteria for breakfast. i am one of those kids whose mere existence depends upon the generosity of our shitty government and the shitty food stamps they give out which consequentially happen to be not-so-shitty because they are what my family lives on.

i am that weird kid that everyone gossips about. i am that kid who you sneak a glance at out of the corner of your eye, wondering what their life is like, but declining to ask because you don’t want to be seen with them.

even in a school full of hoods, no one ever wants to be seen with me.

and i can’t blame them.

i’m kind of a shitty person and an even shittier friend.

well i’m not sure about the second one since I have basically no friends.

does jack count?

he can’t count.

he’s an even shittier person than i am, and that’s saying something. he’s basically homeless because he refuses to sleep inside his house, mostly because his parents are enormous raving douchebags. his dad drinks and his mom left a long time before he was born. he just sleeps on the back step and hopes that his dad is too drunk to find him. he’s been pretty lucky so far.

sometimes i wish i could just forget all my problems, like his drunk-ass dad. but no, i have to live in this cruel reality where my mom is dead and my dad is a jackass and my only known relative is an overly optimistic shmuck of a brother.

speaking of mom, I should go visit her.

\--------------------

heaven’s gates cemetery is only a few blocks from the house, located next to this piece of shit church that is just a one-room white brick shack with a cross drawn on the back wall in black Sharpie.  

the preacher is actually a pretty cool guy-father jake. he sounds young, but he’s not. he’s actually pretty much the opposite. every time he preaches i’m afraid he’s going to like, collapse onto the podium and the police will haul me in as a witness because i hang out with him a lot.

so I walk in, wave hello to father jake, and i start hunting for her tombstone. she has one of those unpolished stubby ones, because that’s all we could afford. it’s like three inches tall, which makes it really hard to find.

but eventually i find it, small and insignificant in the sea of stone. i know there’s nothing there but her decaying body, and that cemeteries are stupid and pointless, but i think the point is that even though they’re stupid and pointless for the dead people, they’re not stupid and pointless for the living people because they make them feel better. like, it makes them feel like they can still honor this person by leaving stuff for their corpses. it’s so fucking cliché, but then i guess that makes me a hypocrite.

who am i kidding, i’m the biggest hypocrite there is. i’m pissed at my dad for being a jackass who left before my brother was even born, but in some cruel irony i’ll probably grow up to be an even shittier person than my dear ol’ dad.

i hang out in the cemetery, watching the people shuffle past me, wondering what they think of me, a silent kid in a cemetery at seven o’ clock in the morning.

after they’ve all gone inside, i hang around for a few more minutes before walking out into the city. walking around the city is actually pretty relaxing, and I wander around aimlessly until i round a corner and see two people fighting on the sidewalk. i’m about to back away, because i don’t need more shit to deal with, but i suddenly realize that it’s jack fighting with another kid. the other kid seems to have the upper hand, but he’s obviously from the better part of the city, not the ghetto.

“hey!” i shout, like my shouting will help, “get off of him!”

the kid looks up momentarily, and jack uppercuts his jaw, producing a loud crack. the kid groans in pain and punches him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. then the kid jumps on him and starts attacking him mercilessly. this time when I shout, he doesn’t pause in his brutal smackdown of jack. desperate, i resort to the only thing I can think of.

“uh… hey, faggot! why don’t you take on someone your own size?”

it’s heavily ironic, since i’m way shorter than him-he’s probably sixteen or something-but it works. he stops beating the shit out of jack and starts towards me.

“what did you just call me, kid?”

_shit._

i really want to run away, but jack hasn’t quite recovered, and I can’t just run away and leave him like a coward. i may be a piss-poor friend, but i’m not a coward.

“uh, i called you a faggot! yeah, that’s right! faggot! why don’t you come fight me, coward?”

i honestly have nothing against gay people, but i guess he does, because he’s seriously pissed now.

he lunges at me, but I manage to sidestep him at the last second, and i watch as he crashes into the sidewalk, the concrete scratching his face up like sandpaper. he’s only down for a minute though, and he gets back up, face covered in dust and blood, one eye twitching shut. i guess i spend too much time staring at his gored face, because his second lunge catches me off guard, connecting perfectly and smacking my head against the concrete. i’m seeing stars, and he starts punching me repeatedly, just like when he was fighting jack.

everything hurts and my eyesight’s getting blurry, but then jack tackles him and they start fighting again. i’m pretty sure i’ve got a black eye and that my lungs are slowly filling up with blood, but then a jolt of adrenaline suddenly rushes through me. i can see blood on the sidewalk, and I can smell it in the air. i don’t know if it’s mine or his, but I don’t care.

i can taste in in my mouth, bitter and coppery.

_delicious._

i wait until the time is right, and then i pounce.

\--------------------

It wasn’t the first time Jack had been in trouble with the police. Far from it, in fact. He was well known by the local police, and they were well known to him.

“Hey, Mac.” He greets the middle-aged officer with an empty smile.

“You again?” He sounded tired, like sitting around eating donuts was a extremely taxing job.

“Yep, me again. Good Ol’ Scratch.”

_Oh, the irony._

“Old Scratch? Can’t say I disagree.”

If only he knew…

Jack chuckled darkly.

He watched as Mac took in the scene: the guy was long gone, rushed to a hospital the moment the EMTs saw the damage. Crawford was sitting on the curb, shaking his head like he was trying to wake up from a bad dream. He’d been like that ever since Jack had pulled him off of the other guy. He’d shown a certain ruthlessness that someone like Jack could respect, a lust for blood, something he’d never seen in Crawford before, but he’d also been an idiot.

He had no idea what Crawford was thinking, taking on that guy. He guessed that he was supposed to be grateful, but it’s not like he asked for help. He’d have been just fine on his own.

Of course the guy probably would have been dead, but whatever.  

Did Crawford think he was some big hero, busting in and calling that guy a faggot? Did he have something to prove?

Why they were ‘friends’ in the first place was an unsolvable mystery. Jack had never really cared for humans in general, staying to the sidelines, fighting them only when he had to. He found Crawford one day when he was wandering around the city, a small kid sitting in the cemetery on a dreary Sunday morning. Jack guessed he just stood out, dark-haired, pale-skinned, a blank look on his face, staring at something no one else could see, lost in a comatose state of dreaming.

Jack was starting to worry that Crawford was developing emotional attachments to him, like they were partners in suffering or something. Everything Jack had told him about his life was a lie-his father wasn’t a drunk-he didn’t _have_ a father, at least not in _their_ sense of the word. He’d lied to him, he supposed, to make himself seem normal, or as normal as one could be when associated with people like Crawford. The truth was, Jack didn’t care about him. He could have watched him die and not give a shit.

But he seemed to care about Jack.

He'd never know why.

\--------------------

i’m breathing heavily, in and out, in and out. i have no idea what just happened-all i know is that the other kid’s got a bunch of bruises and a few broken ribs, snapped by the extreme pressure.

the extreme pressure of what…?

me? my fist?

how the hell is that even possible?

don’t get me wrong, i’m no creampuff. i grew up poor, in the shitty part of town. i know how to defend myself. my smart mouth often got me in trouble with guys much bigger than me, but i’m still here, aren’t i?  

the question is: how the fuck could a shrimp like me break a jock’s bones?

i don’t know how that happened: my best guess is some adrenaline-fueled rage, but i’ve got bigger problems to deal with.

i just broke some guy’s ribs, and the upper crust isn’t gonna take kindly to that. sure, it was self-defense, but who’re you gonna listen to in a court of law---some punks off the street or a innocent, helpless rich kid.

i snorted at the thought-helpless my ass. jack’s not that kind of guy, he wouldn’t start a fight.

…would he?

no. i know jack. he’s not a mean guy, just a victim of poverty---like me. he’s a good guy.

i know he is.

how the hell was i going to get myself out of this? nowhere to run, nowhere to hide; a caged rat, trapped with no way out.

and yet another problem arises---how am i going to get the money to present myself at court? gotta dig up some formal clothing, find a lawyer---because we’ll probably be the defense---and explain it to kyle on top of everything else.

jesus, kyle.

oh god, _kyle._

poor kyle. poor goddamn kyle. he tries so hard just to keep the both of us alive and here i am getting into even more shit. my god. i’m such a terrible brother, but i guess that’s pretty obvious.

god dammit.

_kyle._

_kyle…_

_...kyle…_

“crawford. crawford. don’t fucking ignore me, kid.”

“huh-what-who? jack?”

his voice breaks me out of my stupor and i turn to look at him.

“who else would it be? come on, get up. we gotta go. it’s almost twelve. kyle’s gonna have my head.”

i could swear that there’s a tenderness in his eyes as he crouches on the curb besides me, but it vanishes so quickly that i’m left to wonder whether it was just my imagination. either way,  i stand up and trail behind as jack walks away.

\--------------------

after about fifteen minutes, we arrive at the house and my stomach sinks when i see the cop cars parked outside the house, lights flashing. a sudden wave of nausea hits me and i feel like throwing up. my legs buckle and i hit the pavement, head spinning, vision blurring, dry heaves racking my body. the world blurs and i feel jack’s hand on my shoulder, but he pulls back as kyle’s voice cuts through the daze.

“dammit jack!”

kyle’s voice comes out in a harsh bark and he’s angrier than i’ve ever seen him. he’s always unnaturally stormy when jack’s around, but now he seems ready to kill him.

i think i must be really shitfaced because i swear that kyle looks exactly like a roman emperor straight from the school textbooks.

“shit.” i hear jack murmur through the haze. “hey kyle.”

“hey? hey?! that’s all you’ve got to say to me? you forced my poor brother to help you bully another innocent teenager-” and i feel something coming up as jack opens his mouth to defend himself.

“bully? i didn’t bully anyone, you fucking idiot! that kid started wailing on me, what the hell was i supposed to do, let the prick beat me up? i was doing just fine on my own! i never asked the kid for help, and it’s not my fault he jumped in like a complete dumbass! anyways, look at us-we’re _fine!_ ”

"fucking look at him jack, d' you call that 'fine'? he's fucking dry heaving, he's definitely _not_ fine!"

i've never heard kyle cuss before and it scares me. _he's_ scaring me. the bile rises in my throat and i hack out whatever shit i ate in the past few days.

_is that blood?_

kyle's stopped yelling at jack, instead he's screaming, screaming for an ambulance, for someone to help me because _holy shit i just puked blood and that is not good._

**Author's Note:**

> i swear that switching it to courier new font makes it better
> 
> also, i'm sorry about the terribly cliched beginning


End file.
